Drones and Geography: Moving Beyond Military Applications

Drones are no longer the reserve of the military, steadily being adopted and integrated across the civilian, commercial and academic sectors. Despite this proliferation of drones, the majority of academic (and geographic) work on drones remains focused on their military applications. Whilst noting the sustained importance of this work, this session aims to help redress the dearth of research in this area through bringing together papers from across geography (and beyond), stimulating a critical interrogation of the functioning and implications of the civilian, commercial and academic adoption of drones. We therefore welcome a diverse range of conceptual, empiric, or methodological papers from relevant fields, seeking to contribute to this dialogue. Contributions could explore, for example: the drone as a research object, as a research tool, or as a vehicle through which to unpack and explore themes such as visibility, privacy, power, mobility and space.

Abstract submission:

Proposals for papers, including a title and an abstract of no more than 250 words, should be emailed to Neil Waghorn (njw10@aber.ac.uk) and Anna Jackman (ahj203@exeter.ac.uk) before 8th February 2016.

Format:

Papers will be 15 minutes, with 5 minutes for questions. We welcome creative contributions of equivalent length.

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